1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to systems for performing hashing at very high speeds. Systems of the type disclosed have applicability to a variety of tasks, but are well suited for the performance of Bitcoin mining.
2. Description of the Related Art
Bitcoin has been described as including a mix of three monetary processes. Bitcoin handles its own transaction processing, fraud prevention and currency issuance. In Bitcoin, each of these processes is reduced to very simple and powerful cryptographic methods that ensure that each step in a chain of steps verifies the next.
In Bitcoin, mining is analogous to a race that occurs every ten minutes where participants all compete to solve a mathematics puzzle. When a solution is found, all transactions (the buys and sells of the system) since the last puzzle was solved are wrapped up into a “block.”
Mining is actually verifying and encoding these transactions. A participant who verifies and encodes the transactions receives an award of 25 Bitcoins (generally equal to several hundred dollars).
A hash is a way to compress a long number into something shorter that can be used by a computer, but uniquely identifies the long number. A basic SHA-2 algorithm used in hashing is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,829,355 to Lilly. Bitcoin mining speeds are measured by the number of hashes that are performed per second, with Megahashes (MH/second), Gigahashes (GH/second) and now Terahashes (TH/second) being common units of measurement.
In mining, the goal is to find a hash that has a sufficient number of zeros at the beginning of the hash. This signifies that the analysis of the block is complete, and the reward is paid from the coinbase, which is an imaginary repository containing all possible Bitcoins.
There exist systems for doing Bitcoin mining. However, as these systems are capable of higher hash speeds, it becomes more difficult to earn a reward with any existing system. Sometimes the rewards must be shared by several winners who collaborated on finding a solution. Further, as hashing speeds are increased, the amount of electricity needed to operate the electronic devices associated with a mining system goes up considerably. The cost of electricity can have a significant impact on the profitability of a mining operation, especially if the award is being shared.
Thus, there is a need for a system that performs hashing at very high speeds. There is also a need for a system that can perform hashing at very high speeds using relatively small amounts of electrical energy.